Note 73 — Chapter III · CATHERINE FIESCA ADORNA’S LIFE, UP TO HER CONVERSION; AND THE CHIEF PECULIARITIES PREDOMINANT THROUGHOUT HER CONVERT YEARS

The reason for this lies in the emphatic, repeated conviction of R. 1, based, no doubt, upon the authentic documents (probably Vernazza’s memoranda) that he has incorporated, (a conviction which appears wherever his scheme was not tampered with by R. 2,) that her great penitential period lasted four years (so still on pp. 12b, 13b twice, 14c; and originally, no doubt, on p. 6a, and probably on p. 5c, where now we read “a little over a year,” and “about fourteen months” respectively). For not all the subsequent doctoring, that shall be traced later on as having been applied by R. 2 to some of the refractory passages, succeeds in making it likely that these penitential exercises outlasted the complete disappearance from her sight of her sins, which we have already quoted from the last likely passage. And it is equally improbable that formal and repeated Confession should not have formed part and parcel of the whole of this penitential time. On the other hand, “her Confessor,” on p. 77, and “the spiritual physician” on p. 8a, indeed all other mentions of a Confessor throughout the Life subsequent to her first convert Confession, will be shown in the Appendix to apply exclusively to Don Marabotto, and to the last eleven years of her life.